How can you use CSM to increase sales revenue?

If you don't set a sales target for your CSMs, they will focus on what they do best: demonstrating value and building trust. When someone trusts you, they are more likely to make a purchase. Effective sales strategies are grounded in relationship-building, and CSMs are skilled at creating strong relationships. Therefore, CSMs have the potential to excel in sales. Implementing an incentive plan for CSMs is all that's needed to motivate them to generate additional revenue.

Put simply... sales is hard. Approaching a stranger, building up enough rapport to allow you to pitch your product, selling them on the value of your product and finally getting them to reach for payment details/sign contract. No Easy task. A sale is an amazing thing... however, a recurring sale is the goal. Recurring revenue is key for growth... the enemy of recurring revenue is Churn. A good CSM offers clients that personal, 1:1, white glove service... allowing them to proactively address client concerns before they become a real problem. Advocating on their behalf to Product and Engineering. CSM's who truly understand retention and customer loyalty... keep that monthly revenue coming in, a great one will even increase it.

In an ideal world sales people focus all their time on revenue generating activities and CSMs focus on being a proactive customer advocate and ensuring the customer realizes value from the products or services they invested in. Every customer represents multiple additional revenue opportunities in the form of expansion sales, cross-sales and of course renewals. As CSMs uncover these opportunities, they can provide high quality 'Customer Success Qualified Leads' for the sales team to close. In addition, CSM’s are best placed to recognize and develop a list of customer advocates that can be leveraged for referrals and promotions. Sales and Customer Success should work together, learn from each other and embrace the role each plays.

In my experience, CSMs are the customer voice within the organization and we create the rapport for candid conversations on what the customer needs and where they are going. Knowing where the customer is going is key for a company’s future and sales. By working with internal teams, CSMs can be part of the growth in sales with feedback for product direction and guiding sales to the right existing customers. We can create customer stories that build brand loyalty by bringing the right tools at the right time.

CSM can be used to increase revenue in a number of ways: Upsells and cross-sells: CSMs can identify customers who are using your product or service in ways that suggest they could benefit from additional features or products. They can then work with these customers to develop a plan to expand their usage and increase their spend. Renewal: CSMs can help customers to renew their contracts at a higher price point by demonstrating the value that your product or service has delivered to their business. Reduced churn: CSMs can help customers to avoid churning by proactively addressing their needs and concerns. This can lead to increased customer lifetime value and revenue. Best wishes.

1. Sales and CS should be aligned on which customers have CSM assigned (depending on customer segmentation). 2. CSM and sales can have a joined semi-annual/annual plan to forecast potential growth opportunities. This is based on a mutual (Sales/CS) understanding of customers' challenges, needs, objectives, and business environment. 3. The plan can specify existing opportunities for upsells and/or can list the steps/milestones to identify and qualify future opportunities. 4. Then the teams should agree on an ongoing communication mechanism to review progress where CSMs provide updates and coordinate the commercial and professional efforts. CSMs can identify and professionally qualify upsell opportunities and be the sales' best partners.

It's a two-step process - the first step is to start with "Why". CSM should understand the goal of the customer from their product and services and co-create to build the roadmap to achieve those goals. The roadmap is then the opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell solutions that will benefit the customer and get them a good investment value. The second step is to understand the competition and the direction the customer's industry is heading. Use this knowledge and insights to develop new products and solutions and help the customer win and stay ahead of the game.

Understanding the value of each product/ service/ business line for each account or customer type is pivotal here. If you don't have this well documented or easily understandable within your products or services, not only will your CSMs struggle but your clients will as well. Upselling (or expanding as I prefer) should be a natural occurrence with the success of the product/ service and baked into the playbook post sale. Ensuring the client was right sized into their initial product/service implementation is key here as well. These "play books" should be well defined and every CSM should be confident in each one.

One effective way to utilize your connection with customers is by analyzing their product usage through the CSM team. You can monitor how they use your product or service. For instance, if a customer frequently uses a particular feature, it could be an opportunity to upsell a premium version of that feature or offer additional enhancements to improve their experience with that function.

CSM's need to be involved with renewals, It's a core function of the role that can't be completely handed off to someone else. CSM's own the life cycle and pat of that cycle is the renewal.

Customers will renew if they successfully use your product and achieve the expected results. CSMs are well-positioned to drive customers in this direction. They have the product "know-how" and strong communication and relationship-building capabilities. The sales team should trust their CSM counterparts to manage the customer experience from onboarding to full adoption. CSMs help customers better define their needs and objectives, later overcome challenges, and do that with minimal effort. During this journey, CSMs become trusted advisors and can assess customer sentiment and the likelihood of renewal. In this regard, CSMs can contribute to the sales team renewal forecasts and support the renewal process, being the closest to the customer.

Simply put, (1) if the customer don't use the products or services they purchased, (2) if using the products or services don't bring the value they expected or (3) if there is a better(or cheaper) way to get the same(or even higher) value, they won't renew your products or services. CSMs usually address (1) and (2).

The renewal process usually starts at least 6 to 12 months in advance. CSMs must know the advocacy state of their customers and use this insight to start renewal discussions with their customers. The renewal process will be smooth if the customer is an advocate or supportive. However, suppose the customer is Neutral, Resistant or Disengaged. In that case, the CSM needs to build a strategy (get all customer touchpoints to collaborate) to improve the customer experience before starting the renewal discussions. CSMs play a crucial role in identifying and building the client advocacy state, which is core to their role and expertise.

It does not matter how much your client uses the software or purchases the solution during the period of performance. If they did not find the value they expected, they will not renew. Setting up your CSM teams to be the strategic advisor they need to truly derive value or services is where they need to be. QBRs focusing on usage are useless unless you're providing toothbrushes. QBRs or ABRs focused on the KPIs/Value being derived from the product and how to continually improve these metrics/ meet the next stage of Growth are where CSMs need to be, which means renewals & expansion are owned by the CSM team.

In my experience CSM's are responsible for advocacy. If a customer is achieving business results a CSM needs to ask their customers for referrals. Most customers are happy to talk about their experience.

First is you need to know your customer’s satisfaction rate of your products and services. With this you would be able to identify from the satisfied customers whom you can ask for referrals. Also, you may want to check backgrounds of each customer contact on how intensive their network would be and if they will be the right person to ask.

By focusing on delivering value, building strong relationships, and creating an easy referral process, you can effectively leverage Customer Success Management to generate referrals. Celebrate customer successes, actively seek feedback, and provide incentives to make referrals a natural extension of your customer interactions. Happy customers are your best advocates, and a well-structured CSM approach can turn their satisfaction into new business opportunities. Make your customers participant of your process.

Building a successful and valuable relationship with each client is the role of a CSM. If you have a trusted advisor that has granted you success, would you not refer friends to gain the same success? These programs or incentives may be nice, but never once have I used one in my roles. They were a cherry on top, not a necessity. If I found true value in a product/service, I will recommend it. At the end of the day, we won't recommend those that don't have our trust. No matter the "incentive" as none of us want a tarnished name for a poor recommendation.

The CSMs can identify the most successful customers and encourage them to join a customer-reference/referral/advocacy program. The additional benefits are that CSMs have good insights into which product use cases have been implemented successfully and the corresponding benefits and value to customers. Sales can leverage this knowledge wisely when seeking a reference for potential prospects who ask to hear other customers' success stories. The collaboration with CS will bring the most appropriate stakeholders, and CSMs can prepare them based on the guidelines from their sales counterparts. Sales/CS can also plan future referrals as part of a joint stakeholder analysis. This is handy when missing referrals in specific markets/segments.

Quantifying the influence of CSMs on sales revenue involves a multifaceted approach.1. Retention Rate: One of the most direct indicators of CSM's impact on sales revenue is the retention rate. 2. Expansion Revenue: Expansion revenue, upselling, and cross-selling is a direct result of effective customer engagement. 3. Customer Health Score: it is a metric that encompasses various aspects of customer engagement. 4Customer Advocacy: CSMs are customer advocates, advocating for the customers' needs within the organization. 5. NPS: Gathering feedback and tracking the Net Promoter Score helps measure the impact.6.Reducing Time-to-Value: CSMs can expedite the time it takes for customers to realize the full value of their investment in a product.

In a transaction economy, revenue was... revenue. In a subscription economy, however, the Street and investors started looking at the revenue in two folds, (1) how much revenue they made during the financial period, and (2) how much of the revenue has(or will) turned into recurring because that gives the investors much more confidence on investing in that firm. CSMs make an impact on the latter perspective on the revenue. How to measure: (1) List all the renewal opportunities, (2) Profile them with renewal risks - High, Medium, Low (the profiling criteria may vary from business to business), and (3) Take a snapshot of the $ sum in each risk profile at the beginning and the end of a specific period. The delta is the impact the CSM has made.

The impact of CSM on revenue can be measured by: 1. Renewal rate 2. ARR/GRR metrics 3. Upsell/cross-sell - This can be achieved by creating an option for CS to open sales opportunities in CRM (and mark them as originated by CS). Those opportunities can be accepted (or rejected by sales), but most importantly, they will create visibility for the CS impact on revenue. Metrics such as NPS and advocacy score are important but cannot easily show a direct impact on revenue vs. the financial metrics mentioned above.

Revenue retention and growth is a big part of CSM role. Focus should be on preventing revenue leakage, proactive cost related communication for Ad hoc chargeable activities and ensuring the client is aligned with costs beforehand.

Customers are becoming more and more keen to achieve the value of the investment they made either via a subscription or a transaction. Sales (organization) sell the value, but CSMs are the ones who help realize the value. How many times have you seen customers not get the full value of your products or services? CSMs can bridge the gap.

CSM is directly proportional to Sales & sales revenue. The more we'll put to achieve CSM the more sales revenue we'll generate.

I may be old school but I’ve always felt providing that CX value was always part of my value add to my customers. My goal is to always deliver value, deepen the relationship and become a partner with my customers. Learn their business, understand their challenges, competition, and trends affecting their industry. I can appreciate the separation and commend those firms that value the customer focus but it doesn’t have to come separately. Sales isn’t a transaction, that’s clerking. Sales is relationship building and you are part of the value only you can deliver.

To begin with, we work to ensure that the clients that we bring in see the value of our platform and continue to grow with us. I feel it is important to earn that right, build credibility, find their objective and drive value and this over time helps you build a strong relationship with your members.

As Customers are keen to know the value they purchased through the Sales process, however they might not have the relevant know-how or even the details of the product or services. This is where the CSM jumps in and hand holds the Customer to attain Max value from the products. The CSM also aids in upselling other/new products or services to the customers as they work closely with them and can presume some needs that can be fulfilled by the CSMs organization. Better assistance to the customers also means positive word of mouth advertising which will inturn lead to more Sales, therefore more Revenue. ??